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My insurance plan requires me to fill certain prescriptions by mail order. But I have always preferred to obtain medications from my neighborhood pharmacy in the New York suburbs, even though it means paying for them out of my own pocket.

For me, the expense has been worth it, because I like having a pharmacist who knows every pill I am swallowing and why, and who does many kind and helpful things the mail order companies don’t. A few times, in a pinch, he gave me a couple of tablets while waiting for a doctor to call in or mail a prescription. Once he gave me prescription-strength, rather than over-the-counter, cor

About 65 million Americans live in communities with a shortage of primary care doctors, physicians trained to meet the majority of patients' health care needs over the course of their lives. How much more difficult will finding a primary care doctor become as a result of the recently passed health care reform legislation, which will extend coverage to an estimated 34 million currently uninsured Americans by 2019?

Massachusetts, which in 2006 passed a law that led to nearly universal coverage of its 6.6 million residents, might provide some clues.

The small liquor outlet situated neatly in a corner of Morgan Drug Store in the city’s old town district is a bit of an enigma.

Drug stores routinely stock liquor in states such as California and Nevada. But in Utah, Morgan County’s single liquor outlet is also the state’s only pharmacy authorized to sell alcohol, as well, under the package agency system. The system in place since the 1930s enables the state, which otherwise controls liquor sales, to turn them over to private businesses in hamlets and outlying communities, where it would have been difficult to rake in big pr

A few months into a new job as a contract engineer, Jim Arey was stunned by an $8,000 bill he received for two doctor-administered infusions of an expensive drug he needs regularly. That’s when the Columbia, Md., man learned that the insurance provided through his placement firm capped doctor office care at $2,000 a year. He unknowingly hit his cap on his first visit because of the cost of the drug.

For a while, Arey, 29, tried to do without the medication for ankylosing spondylitis, which causes inflammation of the joints between his vertebrae, but soon was not “able to move witho

GlaxoSmithKline was sued by the New York attorney general for 'illegal and deceptive' reporting of the risks of its anti-depressant Seroxat. Photograph: Jack Sullivan

Another pharmaceutical giant has settled a big compensation claim. So why are they allowed to go on misleading the public?

This week the drug company AstraZeneca paid out £125m to settle a class action. More than 17,500 patients claim the company withheld information showing that schizophrenia drug quetiapine (tradename Seroquel) can cause diabetes. So why do companies pay out money before cases get to court?An interesting feature of litigation is that various